SUMMARY

In this episode, I continue the theme of UNCERTAINTY from the previous video. I share with you how using the concept of “unmet (or unsatisfied) needs/desires” can provide us with a lens to view uncertainty in a helpful way.

I share an example of someone who has lost their job. I also share the example of someone whose children have grown up and left home. In both cases, looking at how the situation impacts our unmet needs can give us clues for how to navigate the unknown and chart a way forward into our future.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I’m Doyle. I am a life coach and educator who works with people who are making transformations in their personal and professional lives, whether it’s in relationships, or careers, or internally doing self-development work to deepen and enrich their lives in as human beings. And I come to you each week to share some ideas, to hopefully help you in your transformation work, whatever area that might be for you.

Last time, we talked about how to deal with uncertainty when it comes up in our lives. And I offered three strategies to address that.

One is curiosity. In other words, leaning in and using it, using an uncertain situation as an opportunity to explore new possibilities and to learn more about ourselves and, and maybe about other people. We also talked about acceptance—that serenity prayer idea of acknowledging and working on the things that we can change and then acknowledging what we can’t and accepting it as it is, and allowing things to be as they are until a time may come, when we can make some changes. Finally, we talked about self care, taking good care of our physical bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our spirits, whenever we’re faced with uncertainty.

I want to continue on that topic of uncertainty this week. And I want to offer a slightly different view of it through the lens of what Marshall Rosenberg called “Universal Human Needs”. These are similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The idea that I want to share with you is that when we come into an uncertain situation in our lives, we can sit down and take a look at what desires of ours or needs or wants are being left unmet or unfulfilled by this situation and what strategies might we use, or explore, or experiment with to meet those needs. Then we can take those ideas, those strategies, and try them out. We can bring onboard our curiosity, right? And that part of acceptance where we change the things we can change. We can play with changing whatever we have control over.

Universal

Human

Needs

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples. First, let’s take the example of someone who has lost their job. Some obvious needs that are going to be unfulfilled in that situation will be financial sustainability, right? And stability, security, ease and lots of others that we could name. What we could also maybe identify is another need that had been sidelined while they had the job: maybe a desire need for independence and to be their own boss.

Now that the person has lost the job, this could be an opportunity for them to explore that desire for independence, explore starting their own business, or become a freelancer, something along those lines and discover new ways to fulfill or meet the need for financial stability, as well as that desire for independence and being one’s own boss.

Another example could be a parent of kids who are leaving the nest. They’re growing up, they’re going off and starting their adult lives. And now the parent is faced with the uncertainty of, “What do I do now with this extra time and the extra energy I have that I was putting into the kids?”

Maybe they discover that, “I’ve always loved to be creative with music. And that reminds me, I have a guitar in the closet that I haven’t touched for years!” That can be an opportunity then to pick up a new hobby and maybe even turn it into something more than a hobby.

Or perhaps they’ve always wanted to volunteer for a certain organization and be able to contribute to helping other people by volunteering. Now they have the time and the energy to be able to do that.

So hopefully, the idea that you’re getting is that we can take situations where uncertainty comes up, where life changes, and we’re not sure what’s going to happen next and by looking at it through the lens of what needs or desires are unmet, or what needs and desires have we left put aside that now we can turn our attention to, it can be an opportunity for a lot of positive experiences and a lot of positive results to come forward in our lives as we go down these new pathways of exploration for ourselves.

That’s what I wanted to share with you this week. I hope it’s been helpful. Perhaps it has given you some ideas if you’re in a situation where things are a bit uncertain for you right now, give you an idea of ways that you can work with that in terms of your needs and desires.

If you are feeling stuck and would like some help, I’d love to give you the gift of an hour long coaching session. I call it a Coaching Discovery Call. We will sit down, talk about your uncertain situation and explore what is it you would like to achieve in the situation? What is it you want to avoid? And then what are the next action steps that you could take to start achieving what you want?

If this sounds useful to you, there’s a link below that you can click to go schedule an hour coaching call with me and we’ll sit down and talk again. It’s my gift to you.

I always love these talks because we always accomplish something positive and oftentimes it can become an opportunity to work together through one of my coaching packages or programs. I am not going to try to hard sell you, but if we seem to be a match and there seems to be benefit to you working with me, then we can talk about that.

All right. Thank you so much for your kind attention.

Thanks for your support. By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel and you’re watching this on YouTube, please subscribe. It’s a big support.

If you’re watching this on my website, please scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment. Let me know what has been helpful to you, or let me know if you have other questions that I could address in a future video.

All right, thanks again. I wish you peace and joy, and I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon in another video. Take good care.